François Hammer

François Hammer studied at the École centrale des arts et manufactures (1980–82), and obtained his PhD in astrophysics in 1986 at the Université Paris-Diderot.

[12] He implemented the first 3D multi-spectroscopy system on an 8- meter class telescope,[13] and invented the new concept of 'morpho-kinematics'[14] to identify the physical processes that govern galaxy formation, by combining the deep morphologies of HST with the 3D spectroscopy performed at the VLT.

Furthermore, this disk rebuilding scenario solves the so-called spin catastrophe by providing large angular momentum to spiral galaxies.

[18] This was confirmed in 2018 by Gaia observations that have identified the remains of a large collision called Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus which took place nearly 10 billion years ago.

[19][20] He produced the most accurate modeling of the large Andromeda galaxy with his colleagues, Yanbin Yang and Jianling Wang.